Thanks guys, I'll get a possible interest list started soon.
I heard from my contact with the India supplier and she said they can improve the splice areas of their cord so that the same thickness problem didn't happen on a new order. Also, I discovered one of my rolls was made out of brown softer leather and not the tan colored tooling leather that all my other rolls were made of, so I've asked if they can make the order out of brown leather. It would be more like the original belt which is braided from approximately .8-1mm thick brown leather that seems to be then stained a dark cordovan like color. If anyone sees something differently in the pics from the reference cd, let me know.
I haven't heard back from Steve yet.
Thanks for the interest and I'll keep everyone updated,
Lorenzo